I don't think we need to ban robocalls. People do want to know when their school closes, when their prescription is ready to pick up, when their utilities will be undergoing maintenance, etc. The ban should be on unsolicited calls, which sort of does already exist, but has two major problems: too many exceptions, and calls from outside of US jurisdiction.
It should be possible to hit a button and receive $1 for every unwanted phone call. If the carrier cannot come up with a liable party, they are responsible for the $1.
Ban robocalls, though, and just pay real humans to make those calls instead of overpaying superintendents.
I really like this idea because it has a sassy, unusual, creative and
useful logical structure.
As we know, a weakness in all free-entry point systems (like email) is
freeloading. The somewhat broken "solution" is charging a small fixed
fee to the initiator. But this doesn't work in systems we would like
to keep at zero cost because it's a blanket response to an acute
problem - most coms are welcome and legitimate.
Giving the callee the power to charge the caller a small "handling
charge" if they don't like being bothered makes a lot of sense.
Of course it has its own modes of abuse, but the best way to avoid
that is not to send to people you don't know.
Like the worst case scenario for individuals is their friends do it to them as a joke or they misdial and lose $1. I doubt most people would exercise the option for a wrong number though. I need to iron out some edges cases, like it must be ineligible for 800 and 900 numbers. But then I am pretty certain all carriers will be able to miraculously trace and block unwanted calls on midnight of the day it takes effect.
I've always wondered why Google and Apple don't build a report button into their dialer that allows you to generate a FCC complaint. This seems like a pretty easy task but doesn't seem useful from a third party app. It would auto fill a fair amount of information for you. I'm sure this would burden the FCC system, but I'm not sure that's a big concern and rather just would force the FCC to recognize the scale of the problem. Hard for politicians to argue against too: "We need to defund the FCC because companies like Google and Apple are over burdening the systems with reports of spam callers!"
It would also be nice if they streamlined the ability to add yourself to the DNC list.
Google engineers that are here, is there a reason you don't do this? If not, can you do it in your 20% time? 350 million of us will thank you.
It's hard to collect, but you're actually entitled to something like $500 per violation of the do not call list. I do wish there were a button on my phone to collect all that money.
That would be rad. The problem is all the guys trying to contact you about your car's warranty are outside US jurisdiction or hidden. If the phone companies were liable at all that would end immediately. I'm fine if it's $500 instead of $1, but it has to be easy to collect.
You used to be able to collect direct from spammers if you could hunt them down, too. I think CAN SPAM ended that, which is a shame.
all of those things can be communicated just as easily over text message. A solution could be opt-in on the customer side, and the business could need a license from the telecom to robocall. Otherwise the FTC could fine the telecom and/or the business for unsolicited robocalls.
I would go as far to say unsolicited business calls, automated or otherwise, should be banned.
Not everyone can hear a voice-mail. My partner is deaf, and if Google Voice can't transcribe a voice-mail, they don't know what it says until I listen to it.
IIRC it's still being slowly implemented, as slowly as things are made mandatory - because any telecoms that can make money by forwarding fraudster calls to other telecoms don't want to support it.
I believe SHAKEN/STIR was mandated only for calls originating from within the US, however, most of these fraud calls are originating over VOIP (or SIP) from outside the US.
Comments
I don't think we need to ban robocalls. People do want to know when their school closes, when their prescription is ready to pick up, when their utilities will be undergoing maintenance, etc. The ban should be on unsolicited calls, which sort of does already exist, but has two major problems: too many exceptions, and calls from outside of US jurisdiction.
It should be possible to hit a button and receive $1 for every unwanted phone call. If the carrier cannot come up with a liable party, they are responsible for the $1.
Ban robocalls, though, and just pay real humans to make those calls instead of overpaying superintendents.
I really like this idea because it has a sassy, unusual, creative and useful logical structure.
As we know, a weakness in all free-entry point systems (like email) is freeloading. The somewhat broken "solution" is charging a small fixed fee to the initiator. But this doesn't work in systems we would like to keep at zero cost because it's a blanket response to an acute problem - most coms are welcome and legitimate.
Giving the callee the power to charge the caller a small "handling charge" if they don't like being bothered makes a lot of sense.
Of course it has its own modes of abuse, but the best way to avoid that is not to send to people you don't know.
Like the worst case scenario for individuals is their friends do it to them as a joke or they misdial and lose $1. I doubt most people would exercise the option for a wrong number though. I need to iron out some edges cases, like it must be ineligible for 800 and 900 numbers. But then I am pretty certain all carriers will be able to miraculously trace and block unwanted calls on midnight of the day it takes effect.
Maybe apply it only to call centers?
I've always wondered why Google and Apple don't build a report button into their dialer that allows you to generate a FCC complaint. This seems like a pretty easy task but doesn't seem useful from a third party app. It would auto fill a fair amount of information for you. I'm sure this would burden the FCC system, but I'm not sure that's a big concern and rather just would force the FCC to recognize the scale of the problem. Hard for politicians to argue against too: "We need to defund the FCC because companies like Google and Apple are over burdening the systems with reports of spam callers!"
It would also be nice if they streamlined the ability to add yourself to the DNC list.
Google engineers that are here, is there a reason you don't do this? If not, can you do it in your 20% time? 350 million of us will thank you.
20% time died a decade ago
Ahh classic Google, killing everything that made it the thing it is today (or maybe better put, yesterday)
It's hard to collect, but you're actually entitled to something like $500 per violation of the do not call list. I do wish there were a button on my phone to collect all that money.
That would be rad. The problem is all the guys trying to contact you about your car's warranty are outside US jurisdiction or hidden. If the phone companies were liable at all that would end immediately. I'm fine if it's $500 instead of $1, but it has to be easy to collect.
You used to be able to collect direct from spammers if you could hunt them down, too. I think CAN SPAM ended that, which is a shame.
Yeah "hard to collect" is something of an understatement.
all of those things can be communicated just as easily over text message. A solution could be opt-in on the customer side, and the business could need a license from the telecom to robocall. Otherwise the FTC could fine the telecom and/or the business for unsolicited robocalls.
I would go as far to say unsolicited business calls, automated or otherwise, should be banned.
Not everyone can receive or read a text message.
Not everyone can hear a voice-mail. My partner is deaf, and if Google Voice can't transcribe a voice-mail, they don't know what it says until I listen to it.
Many automated messages that I get come via both text and voice, I presume, for this reason.
whatever happened to SHAKEN/STIR and why didn't that fix everything like people said it would?
IIRC it's still being slowly implemented, as slowly as things are made mandatory - because any telecoms that can make money by forwarding fraudster calls to other telecoms don't want to support it.
I believe SHAKEN/STIR was mandated only for calls originating from within the US, however, most of these fraud calls are originating over VOIP (or SIP) from outside the US.